by on 12/04/2019 674 877
Conveniently situated in the Oasis Square development in Ara Damansara, Yellow Submarine is an early learning provider offering art based curriculum for children between the ages of 3 to 6 years old. Named after a song by the English rock band the Beatles, Yellow Submarine Preschool of Arts is, in essence, an art university scaled down for children.
Julia Bakar, its co-founder, seeks to offer more than just a fact teaching institution. Yellow Submarine was therefore established with the aim of providing a balance of intellectual, artistic, imaginative capacities and practical life skills with a strong emphasis on teaching and learning through the arts.
“The arts are not a luxury. They are as crucial to our well-being, to our very existence, as eating and breathing. Access to them should not be restricted to a privileged few” remarked Richard Attenborough once. An American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, Neil Degrasse Tyson when asked to opine on the importance of art education, said “We measure the success of a civilisation by how well they treat their creative people.”
Benchmarked against a CoRT thinking method developed by Dr Edward de Bono at Cambridge University, Yellow Submarine acknowledges thinking as a skill and aims to get her students to develop the skill of practical thinking. With this in mind, and recognising the importance of learning through the arts, the principal went to extraordinary lengths to promote creativity in the learning of all its educational subjects.
Yellow Submarine Preschool of Arts offers 5 principal areas of learning. Each lesson is taught by qualified teachers with at least a diploma in Early Childhood Education or related field.
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FIVE PRINCIPAL AREAS OF LEARNING | |
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Architecture |
Culinary |
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Children love building structures and learning how they are made. Learning basic principles of architecture helps improve social, emotional and cognitive growth of the individual child. The architectural lesson typically begins with something simple and small - taught with a focus on geometry, environmental problems, science, history, creative thinking and model building. |
One of the most universal languages is food. When children learn culinary arts, they learn to read (reading recipes), they learn to follow instruction, they also learn mathematics and science by doing something as simple as counting eggs or pouring water into a measuring cup. The programme not only helps build their self-confidence but also gains their sense of accomplishment. |
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Fashion Design |
Music and Movement |
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Children learn the art of marketing, explore their creativity and understand their individuality when they learn fashion design. Fashion design is an interesting subject because it requires not only children to be imaginative and communicative, but they also help them learn to become good decision makers. Decision making is one of the most important skills the individual child needs to develop to become healthy and mature adults. |
Various research and findings continue to highlight numerous benefits of children learning music. When children learn music (rhythm and scales), they learn basic mathematics; division, creating fractions and patterns recognising. Learning music or any other forms of arts help them learn to recognise, manage, and express their emotions and feelings. Social-emotional learning is a key component in teaching young children. |
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Arts & Crafts |
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Arts and crafts are great for learners of all ages. They make its learners think about things they would never have thought of. They spark imagination and creativity. Through these fun activities, children learn to nurture their creative spirit. They also learn to explore ideas, concepts and how to express them by making something that they can feel proud of. |
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EDUCATIONAL SUBJECTS | |
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Reading With Phonics (BM) |
Reading With Phonics (ENG) |
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Science Experiments |
Numeracy & Mathematics |
We're a big believer of ideas. Our role as a teacher here is to listen to the kids' ideas and imagination and help them turn them into reality. And art, they can be found in anything we do in life - they influence us, as a society, in ways that sometimes we never imagined possible. Art not only provides us with an avenue for self-expression and fulfilment, but they are also what constitutes our identity as human; learning to understand, appreciate, and create art is us learning to become better humans. - Julia Bakar
Taking its cue from Finland's approach to open classroom concept, Yellow Submarine incorporates open-plan principles at its centre. There are however moveable walls and partitions that can be drawn across to create separate learning spaces when needed. A preschool with no divisions between ages, the principal seeks to promote not only collaboration and creative thought but also a high level of autonomy for teachers and students, who are being given more responsibility in organising their own learning.
